Its been six years since we went to Marwell, so Saturday's spontaneous day out was a real treat. It's actually just really nce to be able to do it 'just like that'. A quick half day job last week with some flyers for the Bargate Markets paid £300 cash - my half of which D kindly dropped round on Friday night.
Meant that we were able not only to get in comfortably (although its actually not as expensive as I have been led to believe) but we could afford to eat there without the faff of packing up, and the kids had a bit each for the gift shop at the end.
Could have done without Boy accidentally smashing and African figurine which cost us another £15, but no matter. Poor kid was mortified when it fell of the shelf, and so upset that it was impossible to be annoyed with him.

Favourite among the little ones were the penguins, especially the way they play 'follow your hand' when you wave big circles around the viewing window. Baggins loved them, and then the Golden Lion Tamarinds in the Encounter Village. She was less than enamoured though with the free-flying Kookaburras, who prefer to sit on fence posts about head high and stare threateningly into the eyes of passing toddlers. Quite dangerous I should think - they have the kind of beak that could easily take her eye out!

We spent the most time in the Africa Zone, with the amazing giraffes. A real speciality of Marwell, and they are just so… well, BIG! Incredibly graceful animals with a presence that you can feel as you stand watching them. Absolutely beautiful.

Same has to be said of the oh-so-cute and world famous Amur Leopard cub

who decided to play outside for twenty minutes or so in the sunshine between storms at exactly the moment we turned up at the cage.
Fantastic.
She's only been coming out now for about three weeks, and is, of course, just about the cutest thing you ever saw/
So lucky to see this - a real privilege.

Very tiring day, escpecially with the bizarre weather. Most of the time it was bitterly freezing and the wind was eye-watering, and there were more than the occasionally flurry of snow and sleet.
And yet in between, for half an hour three or four times during the day, it was quite warm and the whole park was bathed in spring sunshine.
Weird.

What else? I loved the kookaburras, and Flo loved the tropical zone with snakes, spiders, scorpions etc.
Lemurs are always good fun, and very approachable.

Boy insisted we went round the whole park at the end on the Land Train (cold as cold...), and we enjoyed excellent views of Ostriches, Oryx and Rhinos. I think the animals we keen to come out whenever the sun broke through as well - although without exception there were no monkeys outside in any of the enclosures.

Needs a new site map - I can work on that.